Across the Zodiac eBook

in a voyage to the Moon, or the Sun in a more distant
journey. As soon, then, as the character of the
apergic force was made known to me, its application
to this purpose seized on my mind. Experiment
had proved it possible, by the method described at
the commencement of this record, to generate and collect
it in amounts practically unlimited. The other
hindrances to a voyage through space were trivial
in comparison with that thus overcome; there were
difficulties to be surmounted, not absent or deficient
powers in nature to be discovered. The chief
of these, of course, concerned the conveyance of air
sufficient for the needs of the traveller during the
period of his journey. The construction of an
air-tight vessel was easy enough; but however large
the body of air conveyed, even though its oxygen should
not be exhausted, the carbonic acid given out by breathing
would very soon so contaminate the whole that life
would be impossible. To eliminate this element
it would only be necessary to carry a certain quantity
of lime-water, easily calculated, and by means of
a fan or similar instrument to drive the whole of the
air periodically through the vessel containing it.
The lime in solution combining with the noxious gas
would show by the turbid whiteness of the water the
absorption of the carbonic acid and formation of carbonate
of lime. But if the carbonic acid gas were merely
to be removed, it is obvious that the oxygen of the
air, which forms a part of that gas, would be constantly
diminished and ultimately exhausted; and the effect
of highly oxygenated air upon the circulation is notoriously
too great to allow of any considerable increase at
the outset in the proportion of this element.
I might carry a fresh supply of oxygen, available
at need, in some solid combination like chlorate of
potash; but the electricity employed for the generation
of the apergy might be also applied to the decomposition
of carbonic acid and the restoration of its oxygen
to the atmosphere.

But the vessel had to be steered as well as propelled;
and in order to accomplish this it would be necessary
to command the direction of the apergy at pleasure.
My means of doing this depended on two of the best-established
peculiarities of this strange force: its rectilinear
direction and its conductibility. We found that
it acts through air or in a vacuum in a single straight
line, without deflection, and seemingly without diminution.
Most solids, and especially metals, according to their
electric condition, are more or less impervious to
it—­antapergic. Its power of penetration
diminishes under a very obscure law, but so rapidly
that no conceivable strength of current would affect
an object protected by an intervening sheet half an
inch in thickness. On the other hand, it prefers
to all other lines the axis of a conductive bar, such
as may be formed of [undecipherable] in an antapergic
sheath. However such bar may be curved, bent,
or divided, the current will fill and follow it, and